Honoré Mirabel was a labouring lad, under age, near Marseilles. His story was that, in May (year not given), about eleven at night, he was lying under an almond tree, near the farm of a lady named Gay. In the moonlight he saw a man at an upper window of a building distant five or six paces, the house belonged to a Madame Placasse. Mirabel asked the person what he was doing there; got no answer, entered, and could see nobody. Rather alarmed he went to a well, drew some water, drank, and then heard a weak voice, bidding him dig there for treasure, and asking that masses might be said for the soul of the informant. A stone then fell on a certain spot; stone-throwing is a favourite exercise with ghosts everywhere.
With another labourer, one Bernard, Mirabel dug, found a packet of dirty linen, and, fearing that it might hold the infection of plague, dipped it in wine, for lack of vinegar. The parcel contained more than a thousand Portuguese gold coins. Bernard and his mistress were present at the opening of the parcel, but Mirabel managed to conceal from them the place where he hid it, not a very likely story. He was grateful enough to pay for the desired masses, and he had himself bled four times to relieve his agitation. Mirabel now consulted a merchant in Marseilles, one Auguier, who advised him to keep his old coins a mystery, as to put them into circulation would lead to inquiry and inconvenience. He lent Mirabel some ready money, and, finally, induced Mirabel to entrust the Portuguese hoard to his care. The money was in two bags, one fastened with gold-coloured ribbon, the other with linen thread. Auguier gave a receipt, and now we get a date, Marseilles, September 27, 1726. Later Auguier (it seems) tried to murder Mirabel, and refused to return the deposit. Mirabel went to law with him: Auguier admitted that Mirabel had spoken to him about having found a treasure which he would entrust to Auguier, but denied the rest. In his house was found a ribbon of a golden hue, such as Mirabel used to tie up his bag, and a little basket which has no obvious connection with the matter. The case was allowed to come on, there were sixteen witnesses. A woman named Caillot swore to Mirabel’s having told her about the ghost: she saw the treasure excavated, saw the bags, and recognised the ribbon. A man had seen Mirabel on his way to give Auguier his bags, and, indeed, saw him do so, and receive a piece of paper. He also found, next day, a gold coin on the scene of the interview. A third witness, a woman, was shown the treasure by Mirabel.
The narrator here makes the important reflection that Providence could not allow a ghost to appear merely to enrich a foolish peasant. But, granting ghosts (as the narrator does), we can only say that, in ordinary life, Providence permits a number of undesirable events to occur. Why should the behaviour of ghosts be an exception?
Other witnesses swore to corroborating circumstances. Auguier denied everything, experts admitted that the receipt was like his writing, but declared it to be forged; the ribbon was explained as part of his little daughter’s dress. The judge decided—no one will guess what—that Auguier should be put to the torture!
Auguier appealed: his advocate urged the absurdity of a ghost-story on a priori grounds: if there was no ghost, then there was no treasure: if there was a treasure, would not the other digger have secured his share? That digger, Bernard, was not called. Then Auguier pled an alibi, he was eight leagues away when he was said to have received the treasure. Why he did not urge this earlier does not appear.
Mirabel’s advocate first defended from the Bible and the Fathers, the existence of ghosts. The Faculty of Theology, in Paris, had vouched for them only two years before this case, in 1724. The Sorbonne had been as explicit, in 1518. ‘The Parliament of Paris often permitted the tenant of a haunted house to break his contract.’ [{253}] Ghosts or no ghosts, Mirabel’s counsel said, there was a treasure. In his receipt Auguier, to deceive a simple peasant, partially disguised his hand. Auguier’s alibi is worthless, he might easily have been at Marseilles and at Pertuis on the same day: the distance is eight leagues.
Bernard was now at last called in; he admitted that Mirabel told him of the ghost, that they dug, and found some linen, but that he never saw any gold. He had carried the money from Mirabel to pay for the masses due to the ghost. Mirabel had shown him a document, for which he said he had paid a crown, and Bernard (who probably could not read) believed it to be like Auguier’s receipt. Bernard, of course, having been denied his share, was not a friendly witness. A legal document was put in, showing that Madame Placasse (on whose land the treasure lay) summoned Mirabel to refund it to her. The document was a summons to him. But this document was forged, and Mirabel, according to a barrister whom he had consulted about it, said it was handed to him by a man unknown. Why the barrister should have betrayed his client is not clear. Mirabel and Marguérite Caillot, his first witness, who had deposed to his telling her about the ghost, and to seeing the excavation of the packet, were now arrested, while Auguier remained in prison. Marguérite now denied her original deposition, she had only spoken to oblige Mirabel. One Étienne Barthélemy was next arrested: he admitted that he had ‘financed’ Mirabel during the trial, but denied that he had suborned any witnesses. Two experts differed, as usual, about Auguier’s receipt; a third was called in, and then they unanimously decided that it was not in his hand. On February 18, 1729, Auguier was acquitted, Mirabel was condemned to the torture, and to the galley, for life. Marguérite Caillot was fined ten francs. Under torture Mirabel accused Barthélemy of having made him bring his charge against Auguier, supplying him with the forged receipt and with the sham document, the summons to restore the gold to Madame Placasse. Oddly enough he still said that he had handed sacks of coin to Auguier, and that one of them was tied up with the gold-coloured ribbon. Two of his witnesses, under torture, stuck to their original statements. They were sentenced to be hung up by the armpits, and Barthélemy was condemned to the galleys for life.
It is a singular tale, and shows strange ideas of justice. Once condemned to the galleys, Mirabel might as well have made a clean breast of it; but this he did not do: he stuck to his bags and gold-coloured ribbon. Manifestly Mirabel would have had a better chance of being believed in court if he had dropped the ghost altogether. It is notable that Sir Walter probably gave his version of this affair from memory: he says that Mirabel ‘was non-suited upon the ground that, if his own story was true, the treasure, by the ancient laws of France, belonged to the crown’.
Scott’s next case is very uninteresting, at least as far as it is given in Howell’s State Trials, vol. xii. (1692), p. 875.
A gentleman named Harrison had been accused of beguiling a Dr. Clenche into a hackney coach, on pretence of taking him to see a patient. There were two men in the coach, besides the doctor. They sent the coachman on an errand, and when he came back he found the men fled and Clenche murdered. He had been strangled with a handkerchief. On evidence which was chiefly circumstantial, Harrison was found guilty, and died protesting his innocence. Later a Mrs. Milward declared that her husband, before his death, confessed to her that he and a man named Cole were the murderers of Dr. Clenche. The ghost of her husband persecuted her, she said, till Cole was arrested. Mr. Justice Dolben asked her in court for the story, but feared that the jury would laugh at her. She asserted the truth of her story, but, if she gave any details, they are not reported. Cole was acquitted, and the motives of Mrs. Milward remain obscure.